The sisters walked through their small town, the sun climbing its familiar path, casting first rays on the fresh earth that covered their father’s grave. It was a day too bright for mourning, the kind that made sorrow feel out of place. The morning grass was still slick with dew and the birds filled the living air with bright morning songs, chirp, chirp, chirping their howdy do’s and halloos.
Celeste led the way, her hand firm around Emily’s, as if she could anchor them both against the tide of everything that had changed. Thirteen and already she’d been handed too much too soon. She walked with her back straight, her eyes steady, as if posture alone would keep her world from tumbling to peaces. Her little sister, Emily, a mighty eight years old, gripped her fishing rod in her left hand with the intensity of someone too young to put a name to her pain but old enough to be swallowed by it. She held on to her big sister’s hand like it was the one thing keeping her from floating away, her small fingers gripping tight with the kind of determination that refused to let the tears have their way.
They made for the river and it greeted them with its familiar murmur, a comforting sound that seeped into the spaces between their thoughts. The river knew, Emily thought, of course it did. The water flowed on, unhurried, as if it might carry their grief along its course, smoothing the edges but never really letting it go. They found a spot beyond the stand of conifers where the river bent wide and slow, settling on the gravel bank with lines cast. The world moved on, indifferent to their weight and the silence closing in around them.
“Do you think Daddy’s happy now?” Emily’s voice barely a whisper above the river’s running waters.
Celeste sighed, searching for words that could make sense of something she didn’t fully understand. “I don’t know. I guess he’s at peace,” she said, her own voice soft and far away. “He’s not hurting anymore, I think— Maybe he’s watching us.” She added, “Smiling ‘cause we’re here, doing what he loved.”
Emily thought about that, her little brow furrowed like she was trying to wrangle something too big for her small hands. “So…he’s like a fish that got away?”
Celeste smiled a sad kind of smile. “Maybe. Sure. Like a big, shiny fish that slipped back into the water. We can’t see him but he’s out there. Swimming and jumping like he’s supposed to.”
Emily thought that felt right and they sat in silence for awhile, the sun dipping low, painting the world in colors that couldn’t match their mood, but that’s just how it was. Sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes the fish don’t bite but you stay and you keep fishing because there’s nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to be.
Clouds drifted overhead for a long while and the girls sat next to one another quietly jigging their lines in the river. Then suddenly, Emily’s rod jerked and bent hard, arcing into the water. It happened so fast she almost lost her grip and nearly pitched head long into the river. She yelped, excitement and fear lighting up her face. “Celeste! I got one! I got one! It’s a big sucker!”
Celeste was up in an instant, moving before she had time to think. “Whoa Emmy! Remember, work it slow! Slow and easy—don’t jerk to hard! Go real slow!”
The water roiled, the line taut as Emily fought against something that felt too big, too strong. It was almost as if the river itself was alive, almost like it was resisting, like it had a mind of its own, refusing to give up whatever Emily had snagged.
“Help me Celeste! I don’t think I can do it!”
“Hold on! It’s okay. We’ll do it together.”
They pulled together, their small hands clenched tight around the rod, Celeste wrapped herself around Emily, hugging her tight and they worked the pole together, straining with everything they had. Slowly, one turn of the reel at a time, the line crept closer.
Emily could barely contain herself, “Oh wow! It is a big one! How big is it?”
Celeste laughed, “I don’t know but if you don’t hang on we’re gonna lose it!”
And then, as they pulled the big one from the gray murky water, the river and clouds and birds and sky all faded away. The world seemed to stop, leaving just Emily and Celeste straining against the weight of Emily’s bent fishing rod, staring agape in disbelief at the miracle dangling at the end of her line.
It wasn’t a fish, no sir, not by a long shot. What Emily had snagged on her line was something straight out of a fairy-tale fever dream. The kind you might have when you stay up too late eating watermelon on a hot summer day. There dangled a sphere, big as a beach ball, all alive and kicking with colors that had no business being in this world—deep blues like the ocean at midnight, reds burning hotter than a sun spot, and purples and greens swirling together like they were trying to sing secrets about the universe itself, all mottled and wrapped in whites and grays and blacks upon blacks upon deep deep blacks.
“Oh wow.” Emily said softly, much impressed.
The girls stared, wide-eyed, as the orb, dripping with water, began to float just above the river, casting light that washed the world away. As the orb rose up, suspended in mid-air, the weight on Emily’s fishing pole suddenly released and the girls stumbled backward. If Celeste hadn’t caught them they would’ve ended up on their backsides for sure.
“What is it?” Emily whispered, her voice trembling, caught in that nervous exciting place between fear and awe.
“I don’t know,” Celeste breathed, her own voice lost in the wonder of it all. “But it’s beautiful…”
The sphere pulsed and a gentle hum resonated deep in their chests. They could feel it, as if the orb was was alive and understood them. It was happy then sad then scared then it loved them then it hurt, hurt like they did, deep down, so far inside it felt like the hurt would never leave.
“Celeste I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
Slowly the orb began to rotate and spin. Shifting again, this time revealing within it a beautiful world of mountains, forests, oceans, and cities that glittered like bedtime story book dreams.
“It’s beautiful…” Emily’s voice was soft, hesitant. “Can we go there?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Let’s do it,” Emily said, her voice steady, full of the determination that had been building inside her heart since the day they’d lost their father. “We can go together. Let’s do it.”
Celeste looked down into her little sister’s bright watery eyes and said the only thing she could.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
The sphere pulsed with a light that swelled up like it had a mind of its own, pulling them in closer, whispering secrets they couldn’t resist. They reached out, their fingers just grazing its surface, and in that instant, their world and ours came apart at the seams, exploding in a burst of blinding brilliance that left nothing the same as it was before.
A thunder clap later and the riverbank fell silent, just the soft murmur of water lapping at the river bank and the wind threading through nearby trees. A raven took flight heading towards the sleepy sun. And two fishing rods lay forgotten in the grass, the only trace anyone had ever been there.
But elsewhere, beyond the grasp of sorrow and grief and greed, Celeste and Emily stood side by side, hand in hand, gazing out at a spectacular horizon that promised more than they’d ever dared to dream.